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Bill would make life easier for medical pot users in Wash. state
By CHRIS GRYGIEL
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
The Legislature on Thursday began debate on one of the most high-profile measures it will consider this session, a bill giving greater legal protection to medical marijuana users.
Retired police officers and city politicians - some with direct experience of a loved one suffering from cancer - testified in favor. Senate Bill 5073 is sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle.
"I believe this bill is really important to the people of Washington state," Kohl-Welles said during a hearing of the Senate Health Committee. "Pain and suffering are not partisan issues. They transcend political party."
She said her best friend died of cancer when she was 50 and her sister-in-law died from the disease when she was 53. Both were advised by their doctors to use marijuana to make it easier to deal with the effects of chemotherapy. "They tried it and it worked...they had some comfort at the end of their work," Kohl-Welles said.
The bill would provide patients and providers who qualify with "arrest protection" if they don't have more than 15 cannabis plants and 24 ounces of marijuana (the current legal limit), have documentation showing that they qualify to use medical marijuana and that providers aren't using their product themselves.
Patients who qualify would be allowed to grow up to 15 plants for their own use; gardens being used by up to 25 patients would be allowed to have 99 plants.
Three types of businesses licenses would be created for people who grow medical pot, people who process pot products and people who sell those wares. People who sell marijuana to unauthorized people could be charged with a class C felony, according to the legislation. The Department of Health would also have to establish a registry, listing people allowed to use medical marijuana and police would be required to check the list before seeking a search warrant or making a marijuana-related arrest. Police who fail to check the list could be fined $500.
Kohl-Welles cited a Seattle case, where officers in October raided the home of a Gulf War veteran at gunpoint. They found two marijuana plants, but the man was a medical marijuana patient and charges weren't fired. "It was terrifying for him, that should not happen," Kohl-Welles said.
State voters approved an initiative in 1998 that permits the use of medical marijuana for people suffering from "terminal or debilitating" conditions, including cancer, HIV, glaucoma and nausea/seizure diseases. Patients must have a recommendation from a health care professional, however medical pot users aren't protected from arrest. Rather, they can cite the medical marijuana law if they are charged with a drug-relatec crime.
Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland and a retired police officer, also spoke in favor of the bill. He said changing the law would help law enforcement and help eliminate the underground nature of the current system.
"Let's bring it out in the light so we don't have the problems that we do," Delvin said.
Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, worried about potential security problems with expanded grow operations - "It's not like a watermelon patch" - and some of the problems experienced by California, which has seen a huge growth in the number of marijuana dispensaries.
Both Kohl-Welles and Delvin said they were confident their legislation would not lead to a California-style system of legalized pot.
Lauren Walker, deputy mayor of Tacoma, said her husband is suffering from melanoma. She testified in support of the bill, saying the enhanced legal protections for patients would ease people's minds as they use the drug to combat illnesses.
"This is serious stuff," she said.
